The pointless adventures of Alex Bestagit
by mickio1
Summary: Alex Bestagit is a man who hunts corrupted gems for a living but his life of roadtrips across the world in a busted westfalia goes into a different direction when he is presented with a gem from his collection that seems to be normal again. And so begins a tiny bit generic adventure into the nature and (possible) cure to the curse imposed on gems for eons.


Chapter 1: Where Alex's odd line of work becomes even more odd.

My heart was pounding as I hid behind a tree. The sound of hoofs tearing the earth and stumps as it charged again towards me were akin to an Armageddon with me in the center. While not exactly a moment of respite, I had the time the reload my shotgun. I grabbed hold of my shotgun and as I cocked it the monster passed by me, by pure reflex I fired both barrels into it's hideous deer-like face. Stunned and blinded for a moment it crashed into some poor centennial tree, now broken in half by the newly stopped war machine. It was now or never as I began running towards it, my collapsible halberd held firm in my hands as I ran towards its neck and unlocked the mechanism, the springs sending the point of the halberd right into its neck. It pushed a scream from its non-existent lungs to make my ears bleed before finally disappearing in a cloud of smoke. I fell on my knees to catch my breath as I looked upon my "prize", a small smoky blue gem which I recognized to be some kind smithsonite.

Once both my breath and the gem were caught, I walked back to where I had parked my Westfalia outside of this now slightly scuffed up forest and put the gem inside of the safe in the back. Poor thing, never was a fan of this part, always felt odd, knowing that these things were once just as sane as me. A couple of days of boring driving later I was finally back home in Empire City.

First matter of business was to start some coffee, second matter of business was to make sure that the new acquisition was put where it needed to be. And so, I walked downstairs to the basement, the room was filled with rows upon rows of small lockboxes which I thought always sort of looked like a post office and less like a prison for gems. After depositing the smithsonite in one of the lockboxes, I heard the kettle sing its familiar whistle. Once I had poured myself a nice cup of joe I began thinking about this new acquisition. I never really knew much about what caused these gems to become monsters, I did hear from some sources that they were soldiers from some kind of old war that happened before the birth of even my grandfather so I always assumed it could have been some kind of PTSD from hell though this never really gelled with me considering that I never really met any gems that weren't monstrous to hell and back. Its possible they're simply hiding and considering the reputation I had as a "gem hunter" I couldn't really blame them. My grandfather did say he met some non-corrupted gems in his lifetime but I never really delved much into it since the old man was starting to lose it at that point and I never wanted to push him too much. While drinking my coffee and musing over the past I heard something from downstairs which I had heard before but didn't really wish to hear coming from that basement, the sound of a reforming gem. As I spat out my coffee and grabbed the halberd and shotgun I had left in the entrance, I rushed to the basement only to see something which would have made me spit what was left of my coffee if I hadn't already spat it out: What seemed to be a human-like gem.

Chapter 2: Where Questions are asked but never answered

I would have described the initial encounter as quite similar for both of us. A mixture of fear, confusion and shock intertwined together to make for a really bad saturday. Once the initial shock passed I quickly pointed my overly engineered pointy stick at it before babbling the first words that came to mind.  
-"What the fuck are you?" An unfinished coffee and the stupor of the situation naturally lead to me being as smooth and diplomatic as a rock, on fire, that was being hurled at a horse.  
-"I am Aventurine, and you are a human?" While that question was obvious to me, there was no telling how long since it was in state like this.  
-"Why yes, yes I am. And you are a gem not currently in the process of trying to tear my face off my skull. I think we have a lot to talk out."

Three hours and one percolator of coffee later and we had finally managed to understand something. From what I understood, she coulnt remember much. She could remember vague colors of round dunes of yellow which made sense since I had found her in the Nevada desert. She could also remember emotions of fear and confusion which reminded me of some kind of animal being constantly cornered not unlike young teen in a family reunion. Before that corruption she could recall even less. She on the other hand asked quite a lot of me. Neither me or her knew specifics of when she became a wild beast but it sure as well wasnt in this century or the other considering even electricity eluded her. Course this meant I still had no clue what caused this corruption nor what caused her to snap out of it but she seemed stable enough while we were talking. Of course once I had calmed down I could notice how similar she looked to a human woman. Her gray and cold blue hair streamed down to her back in what you could call a ponytail. Her skin was nearing pure white with her eyes and clothes being the kind of blue i'd see in icicle-shaped christmas decorations. Only other thing she had was some kind of summer dress though how any clothes were there was about as unknown as any other woman I had met. The only other thing she could tell me was that she was an assasin and that was her purpose which I suppose told me that gems were made with a purpose in mind. T'was as useful as my tax returns in a goodwill in the moment but it was something.

-"Look, sir. I dont remember much but I do know this, there was a big event, I think a war, and a lot of gems are how I used to be. Can you help me or are we going to keep talking for no reason?" While blunt I had to agree that our discussion was leading nowhere.  
-"Sure, ill help ya out. I dont have much else to do and if I could fix all of your friends down in the basement, it sure as hell would piss off the pro-" It was then I had to stop and realise in my infinite stupidity that I had forgot of the only man I knew that could give me info on this.

After some quick explanations of what cars were me and Adventurite began driving out of Union City in direction to the one city I hated more than almost any other: Boston.

-"Why are we going to this Boston? Will you tell me what is even the point of this!?" The akward silence and impatience of the drive led her to ask me some questions in such a surprising and quick way I almost jumped out the mess of hole that used to be a leather seat.  
-"Boston's a nice city but its a hive of the scummiest people I know. Crime is low but only because its so organised only a select few know about the details of it as well as who runs it all. And that man, is who we're going heading to meet."


End file.
